When You Reach Me
Author: Rebecca Stead
Age Level: 11-14 years
Newberry Award: 2010
It is 1978 in New York City and sixth-grader, Miranda, is grappling with common childhood issues such as negotiating friendships, growing independence, and socioeconomic concerns. In the midst of it all, she receives a series of mysterious notes by someone claiming that he or she is coming to save her friend's life. Miranda is more than a little perplexed, particularly when it becomes apparent that the author of these notes knows things that no one could possibly know...because they haven't happened yet. Can Miranda fit the pieces of the puzzle together?
I was surprised that this book had won the Newberry Award. I thought it was a good, but not a great, book. I had a difficult time identifying why this book left me feeling flat and decided to skim through it a second time in an attempt to glean more from it, to no avail. I had two primary criticisms of this novel. First, it seemed the author couldn't decide if she wanted to write a coming-of-age story or a science fiction mystery. The result was that, on the one hand, several of the subplots, on which a significant amount of time was spent, did not add much to the central storyline. On the other hand, while there were clever elements of the mystery/time travel aspect of the story, it wasn't very well calculated and the resolution felt anticlimactic. Second, although the various characters were realistic, they were not well-developed enough to explain some puzzling behavior from several of them.
In the end, When You Reach Me was not a bad book, just not as interesting as it promised to be. If you do decide to read it, I would suggest reading A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'Engle first since there are several allusions to this story throughout the novel.
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